The knight opens it, fumbling with the tiny clasp. ‘Ah,’ he says. ‘A Latin prayer. Or a Bible verse?’
‘If I may?’ He takes it back. ‘Here is the Book of Proverbs. “Who can find a good, a virtuous woman? Her price is beyond rubies.”’ Evidently it’s not, he thinks: three presents, three wives, and only one jeweller’s bill. He says to Jane, smiling, ‘Do you know this woman who is mentioned here? Her clothing is silk and purple, says the author. I could tell you much more about her, from verses this page cannot contain.’
Edward Seymour says, ‘You should have been a bishop, Cromwell.’
‘Edward,’ he says, ‘I should have been Pope.’
He is taking his leave, when Carew crooks a peremptory finger. Oh, Lord Jesus, he breathes to himself, I am in trouble now, for not being humble enough. Carew motions him aside. But it is not to reproach him. ‘The Princess Mary,’ Carew murmurs, ‘is very hopeful of a call to her father’s side. What better remedy and comfort at such a time, for the king, than to have the child of his true marriage in his house?’
‘Mary is better where she is. The subjects discussed here, in the council and on the street, are not fit for the ears of a young girl.’
Carew frowns. ‘There may be something in that. But she looks to have messages from the king. Tokens.’
Tokens, he thinks; that can be arranged.
‘There are ladies and gentlemen from the court,’ Carew says, ‘who wish to ride up-country to pay their respects, and if the princess is not to be conducted here, surely the terms of her confinement should be relaxed? It is hardly suitable, now, to have Boleyn women around her. Perhaps her old governor, the Countess of Salisbury…’
Margaret Pole? That haggard papist battleaxe? But now is not the time to deliver hard truths to Sir Nicholas; that can wait. ‘The king will dispose,’ he says comfortably. ‘It is a close family matter. He will know what is best for his daughter.’
By night, when the candles are lit, Henry leaks easy tears over Mary. But by daylight he sees her for what she is: disobedient, self-willed, still unbroken. When all this is tidied away, the king says, I shall turn my attention to my duties as father. I am sad that the Lady Mary and I have become estranged. After Anne, reconciliation will become possible. But, he adds, there will be certain conditions. To which, mark my words, my daughter Mary will adhere.
‘One more thing,’ Carew says. ‘You must pull Wyatt in.’
Instead, he has Francis Bryan fetched. Francis comes in grinning: he thinks himself the untouchable man. His eye patch is decorated with a small winking emerald, which gives a sinister effect: one green eye, and the other…
He examines it: says, ‘Sir Francis, what colour are your eyes? I mean, your eye?’
‘Red, generally,’ Bryan says. ‘But I try not to drink during Lent. Or Advent. Or on Fridays.’ He sounds lugubrious. ‘Why am I here? You know I’m on your side, don’t you?’
‘I only asked you to supper.’
‘You asked Mark Smeaton to supper. And look where he is now.’
‘It is not I who doubts you,’ he says with a heavy, actor’s sigh. (How he enjoys Sir Francis.) ‘It is not I, but the world at large, who asks where your loyalties lie. You are, of course, the queen’s kinsman.’
‘I am Jane’s kinsman too.’ Bryan is still at ease, and he shows it by leaning back in his chair, his feet thrust out under the table. ‘I hardly thought I should be interrogated.’
‘I am talking to everyone who is close to the queen’s family. And you are certainly close, you have been with them since the early days; did you not go to Rome, chasing the king’s divorce, pressing the Boleyns’ case with the best of them? But what should you fear? You are an old courtier, you know everything. Used wisely, wisely shared, knowledge may protect you.’
He waits. Bryan has sat up straight.
‘And you want to please the king,’ he says. ‘All I ask is to be sure that, if you are put to it, you will give evidence on any point I require.’
He could swear that Francis sweats Gascon wine, his pores leaking that mouldy, ropey stuff he’s been buying cheap and selling dear to the king’s own cellars.
‘Look, Crumb,’ Bryan says. ‘What I know is, Norris always imagined rutting with her.’
‘And her brother, what did he imagine?’
Bryan shrugs. ‘She was sent to France and they never knew each other till they were grown. I have known such things happen, have not you?’
‘No, I cannot say I have. We never went in for incest where I grew up, God knows we had crimes enough and sins, but there were places our fantasy did not stretch.’
‘You saw it in Italy, I wager. Only sometimes people see it and they don’t dare name it.’
‘I dare name anything,’ he says calmly. ‘As you will see. My imagination may lag behind each day’s revelations, but I am working hard to catch up with them.’
‘Now she is not queen,’ Bryan says, ‘because she is not, is she…I can call her what she is, a hot minx, and where has she better opportunity, than with her family?’
He says, ‘By that reasoning, do you think she goes to it with Uncle Norfolk? It could even be you, Sir Francis. If she has a mind to her relatives. You are a great gallant.’
‘Oh, Christ,’ Bryan says. ‘Cromwell, you would not.’
‘I only mention it. But as we are at one in this matter, or we appear to be, will you do me a service? You could ride over to Great Hallingbury, and prepare my friend Lord Morley for what is coming. It is not the sort of news you can break in a letter, not when the friend is elderly.’
‘You think it’s better face to face?’ An incredulous laugh. ‘My lord, I shall say, I come myself to spare you a shock – your daughter Jane will soon be a widow, because her husband is to be decapitated for incest.’
‘No, the matter of incest we leave to the priests. It is for treason he will die. And we do not know the king will choose decapitation.’
‘I do not believe I can do it.’
‘But I do. I have great faith in you. Think of it as a diplomatic mission. You have performed those. Though I wonder how.’
‘Sober,’ Francis Bryan says. ‘I shall need a drink for this one. And you know, I have a dread of Lord Morley. He is always pulling out some ancient manuscript, and saying, “Look here, Francis!” and laughing heartily at the jokes in it. And you know my Latin, any schoolboy would be ashamed of it.’
‘Don’t wheedle,’ he says. ‘Saddle your horse. But before you ride to Essex, do me a further service. Go see your friend Nicholas Carew. Tell him I agree to his demands and I will talk to Wyatt. But warn him, tell him not to push me because I will not be pushed. Remind Carew that there may be more arrests, I am not yet able to say who. Or rather, if I am able, I am not willing. Understand, and make your friends understand, that I must have a free hand to deal. I am not their waiting boy.’
‘Am I free to go?’
‘Free as air,’ he says, blandly. ‘But what about supper?’
‘You can eat mine,’ Francis says.
Though the king’s chamber is dark, the king says, ‘We must look into a glass of truth. I think I am to blame, as what I suspected I did not own.’
Henry looks at Cranmer as if to say, it’s your turn now: I admit my fault, so give me absolution. The archbishop looks harrowed; he does not know what Henry will say next, or if he can trust himself to respond. This is not a night for which Cambridge ever trained him. ‘You were not remiss,’ he tells the king. He darts a questioning look, like a long needle, at him, Cromwell. ‘In these matters, surely the accusation should not come before the evidence.’
‘You must bear in mind,’ he says to Cranmer – for he is bland and easy and full of phrases – ‘you must bear in mind that not I but the whole council examined the gentlemen who now stand accused. And the council called you in, laid the matter before you, and you did not demur. As you have said yourself, my lord archbishop, we would not have gone so far in the matter without grave consideration.’
‘When I look back,’ Henry says, ‘so much falls into place. I was misled and betrayed. So many friends lost,
